News for the Young Punjab!

You can now video call through Whatsapp beta app | Tech

WhatsApp’s video-calling feature is now live on a beta version of the app (v2.16.80) for Android devices. The APK file, which is ready for download from APK Mirror as well, has the new feature live on it.

The new beta app gives access to video-calling function from the call icon, but it isn’t functional just yet. The app is available to beta testers from Google Play’s beta testing program.

Clicking on the call button now offers option for voice and video call. When a video call is tried, the app greets with a message saying, “Couldn’t place call. Video calling is unavailable at this time.”

WhatsApp’s video-calling feature is one that has been anticipated for quite some time now, and once this launches it could give the app a significant edge over other messaging rivals. The video-calling feature is currently available on Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, KakaoTalk, Viber. Of course, Skype remains one of the leading options for video-calling for many users.

But WhatsApp’s video-calling will be revolutionary in many ways. For starters,WhatsApp has close to 1 billion monthly active users, claims to be totally end-to-end encrypted and we’re assuming that given their obsession for privacy, they will extend the same to their video-calling feature.

It also remains to be seen how they will optimise video-calling on WhatsApp given that the app is so popular in India where network connectivity remains patchy. Also will video-calling be supported on WhatsApp groups is another big question.

Lately WhatsApp has added new features like end-to-end encryption, document sharing and more. Further rumours have suggested, WhatsApp is working on a call-back feature and voicemail support as well.

WhatsApp has indicated that it wants to get more enterprises and businesses on board so as to let them interact with their customers.